How Much Does Puglia Italy REALLY Cost? €175/Day Budget Breakdown

So most travel vlogs that we have watched are either talking about luxury travel, where you're watching these really aspirational places that you really wish you could go, but it's a bit out of your budget, it's a bit like watching travel porn. Or they're the other end of the scale where they're sort of budget travellers, where they're saying, can we do this trip for a hundred dollars per day? Well, the reality is that you like ours, probably sit somewhere in the middle with sort of those three stars travelers.

So what we do, I'll go on to budget your trip website, look at what the average spend is based on a mid range traveler and then work it out. So for Italy, it said it was €200 per person per day, but that's ever so slightly outside of our budget. So we kind of brought that down to €175 per person per day, all in. So that includes all transport, accommodation, food, spending money, the whole works.

Yeah. The only thing it doesn't include is the flight because obviously we're all, you know, if you're watching this, you're coming from a different destination to us. So we've not taken the flight, but we've put absolutely everything else in. And so Our challenge is 3 cities, 10 days, €350 for both of us per day. Can we stick with that? So during this video, we're obviously going to show you around all the beautiful places that we are going. By the way, we've flown to the southern, the hill part of Italy, the very south of Italy, Puglia. That's the region that we're in for this trip. And we, we are doing three different locations over a 10 day period and we're going to see if we can hit €350 per day. So come along with us, see the beautiful sights with us and we'll keep a tally of exactly what we're spending. Now of course, we budgeted this fairly carefully, but there were always hidden costs. And the first one to hit us was when we went to pick up the car. And although we thought we'd taken out sort of fully comprehensive insurance, we did.

Yeah, we did, but they kept going on about, oh, but if your car's vandalized and vandalized of cars as big in this area, you're not covered.

So for peace of mind, basically we paid for their insurance, which means we don't care if the car gets damaged or dented because we're covered. We didn't have to pay a big deposit and we don't have to pay any excess either. So that's €242 which will spread across the 10 day immediately spent. And of course no doubt there will be other hidden costs as well.

Okay, we've arrived early into Palagna Amare. So we've just parked in the general car park. Cost us €3 for about an hour and a bit. And we're just having a quick wander in before we need to see the hotel to take us to the parking. Just got two coke zeros and a bottle of water. €3 50. Tried to order in. Very pigeon Italian.

It was quite good. Say what you said, Time to check into our hotel. And we paid €20 a day for parking through the hotel and they picked us up in a buggy since it was quite some way from the hotel which is in the old town where you can'. Dry.

Oh hi. Welcome to Palazzo Marengelli. We've got a junior suite and it's in a very oldy baldy cavey looking place.

It's groovy, it's right in the middle of the old town but otherwise yeah.

Very nice and cool.

It's got lovely air conditioning, so.

Oh, it is out there.

It's so hot and it's lovely and cool in here. And it's got a dehumidifier as well as the air conditioner.

Oh, she got a boobies out.

Maybe even a big boobies.

A nice little bathroom too.

I look in here. Nice shower, bidet. And most important thing anybody wants in a hotel room is a safe where you can leave your laptop. That's really vital. So there we go. This one you can probably leave your phone in. That's hilarious.

It's also very nice. So yeah, yeah, you're not going to get much in that.

Anyway. What's the name of this place again?

Palazzo Marengelli.

And what's really good about it is it's right in the middle of the old town. So we're gonna literally unpack and chill out for a bit because we've been on the go for 12 hours, haven't we? Yeah.

Need to kind of just relax for a bit now that we're here.

So when you first arrive in Italy, what's the drink that you have to drink?

It's the only sundown it has you can have. It's an apple spirit.

And we are sitting in this lovely market square about six and the hotel recommended a few places so we're going to go and try and find a what looks like a nice pizza place tonight. So we'll see whether that fits in our budget. These drinks were €9 each, so that adds on to our tally for the day. So we've come to. I can't remember the name of the restaurant and James is having a calzone. What's inside the calzone?

It's a classic one, so it's got a few pepperoni and cheeses and stuff.

A side salad and I've got a pizza with porcini mushrooms and ham. After supper, we went for a walk down one of the most famous streets in Poliano. And we didn't realize it at first, but words in the neon lights above are actually the lyrics to Volare, which is written and sung by Domenico Muduno, who is a Poliano resident, and made this song famous and put the town on the map as well. Good morning. Stay two. Had a good night's sleep, didn't we?

Yeah, much needed, that's for sure.

Yeah, the bed was really comfortable in that place. Anyway, we have. Well, we thought we got up early, but it's not that. It's half past ten now and we've driven to Monopoly and we're going to go and explore what we can find here. So just walked down to the old harbour. Not the old harbour, but harbour area in Monopoly and it's very pretty. You can do lots of boat tours from here or just walk around the old town. And it's half past 10 in September and it is already about 30 degrees, so it's nice to be in the show. There's James trying to capture some nice pictures. Sam. It's actually really nice at the moment because it's really quiet here, there's not many people around at all, so we feel a bit like we've got the place to ourselves. Just me and James in the background, stopped for a drink. I've got a Fanta. James has got a Cafe Le Chese, which is an espresso with some almond syrup, which tastes quite nice.

One of the churches is built around a picture of Madonna that they found that floated into the harbour and they don't know where it came from, so they built a church.

Wow.

An image of the Madonna della Madea floated into Monopoly's harbour on a raft in the central part of town. The original Byzantine icon, known locally as the Icon, is house in the cathedral and represents the Virgin Mary died in the evening. So when did this happen? 11:17.

So what do we think of Monopoly, James?

Lovely. Definitely worth an explore if you want to base yourself here. At least then you're away from the Tourist madness of Apollignano. But yeah, basically it's big enough to just get lost and find those different sites. Yeah.

And. And actually we weren't planning on coming, coming here today, but because we got. We changed our flights and got here earlier, we thought we'd come and spend the morning here. And actually on a really baking hot day like today, it's a good place to come because you're in the shade of all the little alleyways. So I think we're going to go and try and find somewhere to have a drink now, aren't we? And then. Or dinner or lunch even before we head head back. We're having an expensive lunch. Just these lovely sandwiches, which are €10 each. €10 each plus Coke Zero. So €25 just for lunch. How does your sandwich taste?

All right, should do. 20. €10.

Back in Poliano and time to explore the town in more detail. Did you know that this is where the Red Bull cliff diving takes place every year, which is an extreme sport where men and women die from 27 meters and 21 meter high across the rocks into the ocean. Rather him than me. This is the famous beach in Poliano, the one where everybody goes to and wants to get their Instagram shots. It's not even a sandy beach. It's hard to see why the attraction of this is really. Dusk starts to fall, so it's time to look for somewhere for supper. So our food has just arrived. We've got a meat platter which looks fantastic, and cheese platter. And what are they called?

I've just forgot.

Something or other. No.

Panzer Lanzarote. Yeah, that's it.

Panzerotti, is it? Yeah. Anyway, looks really nice though. I'm sure it's gonna taste good. This was €28 and I don't know what that was. We've got a glass of wine as well. So I can't remember what these are called, but they're really nice. They're almost like a dome lark, but they've got cheese and. Oh, that was delicious.

Highly recommend.

It's called. And we've noticed that they don't really ask for tips here, but there's a tip jar inside. So we left a five euro, about 10% tip, which I think is probably standard here. But unlike a lot of places, they don't directly ask you for it. So if you had a good meal like we have tonight, then definitely consider leaving a tip to say thank you. Good morning, everyone. We've driven about half an hour, I guess, haven't we? Yeah. Where are we? Now in Alberobello we're going to see the round. What are they called?

The truly.

We parked the car. We'll talk about parking in a summary video. But we parked the car really easily this morning. It's quite early. It's only quarter to 10 and we're heading off. Let me just turn you around. We're heading off in that direction to all the little roundhouses up there. So we'll see when we get there. So we've walked a few hundred meters or so from where we parked the car. There definitely seems to be lots of parking here. But obviously we're in the end of the season now and we're here early. Like I said, it's now 10 to 10. But there's tons of parking so. And it only cost us. What was it? €6. €6 80 for three hours parking. So not too bad. But already we've seen quite a few coach parties being dropped off walking around. So anyway. So the Trudy's are. This area is a world Heritage UNESCO site and there's over a thousand of these conical shaped roofs and we might be talking complete rubbish here but James thinks that the reasons why they're shaped like this was to avoid paying taxes. Taxes because houses were taxed. But these weren't classed as houses. They were probably originally created to keep animals. But anyway I think that's how it.

Bed of all town full of them.

That's what I think. I remember reading you don't have to go far. A little bit like we are now off the beaten track and you kind of get away from the crowds because even this early on a Sunday there are a lot of people here. But they're probably sticking to the main tourist path. Whereas we've just walked a little bit off and you can see these are actually still residential homes. Love to be able to see what they look like inside. Look at all the roofs. Try the coffee shops. Over. Walked a little bit further off the beaten track and we found a truly church.

Blimey, that was busy.

We're back in the car. Let me just show you. We're back in the car park. Look at the streams of people coming.

From all the cars.

And it's quarter to 11 now. Crazy. So I mean if you want to come here it is worth visiting but I really.

It's unique.

I'd advise you to get here early because all these car parks that were empty earlier are now full and we've only been here an hour. So I would have aimed to get here for 9 o' clock in the morning. It's a completely different experience when there's not a lot of people here and by the time we left when we were trying to get out of the place it is really, I don't know, crazy. It'd be like being in Disneyland to be quite honest. Anyway, where are we going now, James?

We're going to go to Castellano Grotto which is the caves, see what that's like.

Yeah.

And then from there we're going to go to Locorotondo. So we went to Castellana Grotte but the times for English were 11, 11 o' clock and 4 o' clock and.

We got there about quarter to 12. So do your research and also if you're going to go to the caves book the tickets online a couple of days before because then you're guaranteed to get in. We could go back for 4 o' clock and. But you know we may not be able to get in anyway. So what happened next?

So we've made, we've come to Locorotondo trying to find volcano spun. We managed to find it in some residential area, 15 minute walk away. So we're now just gonna have a wander around and see what it's like.

Looks like a lovely old town and this looks really pretty. It's supposed to be a sort of unspoiled, non touristy. Having said that it looks really busy and it's quite cloudy now. Hopefully it's not gonna rain but it's. What that does mean is it's much, much cooler so it's more bearable. Look where it's on, just on a.

Hill so you get the breeze.

Right. Well it's definitely, definitely cooler here is the. Just had lunch there and then these are the views across there across the valley you see lots more trudy houses over there probably without all the tourists. This month. Changed this saying that we were hungry so we wanted to find somewhere for lunch so we went to where we went on the edge of town and then we've come in here and we found where all the restaurants are. But anyway our lunch was fine.

Probably nicer places.

Yeah, I'm sure there's, I'm sure there is nicer places but I think we'll find some gelato somewhere, don't you hear? Well we're creatures of habit so we've ended up coming back to the same height we had last night for the cheese and ham platter and the panzanella which are amazing and panzerotti and that's what they are. And we've already had a couple of aperols and now we're having some wine. And everyone. What's everyone out doing tonight? It's like promenading around. Which means everything is so busy.

They're all dressed up. It's to be seen and be to see and bc.

Yeah, that was very good. Just enough. It's only half past seven. Everyone isn't even thinking about eating yet. But we're suitably sloshed with too much alcohol and food. So that was very nice. So if you fancy coming here then. Apian way. The name of the restaurant should have been recording this, but we bought these. Pasticcio something or other. They're really interesting. They're like a pie. Sweet pastry with a filling. I've got a tumor. Sue one. Jen's got a cherry one. I'm being serenaded by the baths. So I think we're gonna end this week's video here. We've had three lovely days here and we're heading to Otranto next, so it's about a three hour drive. We're gonna stop on the way and we'll take you there in next week's video. But just a quick summation of what you think of Polanio. I'm not excited if it starts.

It's lovely. It's really, really pretty. Weekends gets very, very busy. Sunday especially because everyone loves. All the Italians love. Which means to go for a walk, to see and be seen. So it gets very busy.

Yeah, it was packed here yesterday. It's so much quieter this morning on a Monday morning.

Deserted.

And a few other tips. If you're going to go to the caves, make sure you book in advance.

Months and know the times.

Yeah. And also know the times for, for example, English translation because it was only 11 and 4, so we missed both of those. If you're going to the truly village, which is. I've gone Alberobello. Yeah. Then get there early because.

Very early.

Blimey. We. By the time we left about half past ten, it was absolutely packed and it sort of spoils. It turns into a Disneyland theme park. But otherwise it is absolutely beautiful here. And do put this on your itinerary.

Oh, yeah.

It seems to me that most of the people who are here are Italian rather than foreigners. There are of course Brits and Germans and so on, but obviously most people are flocking towards Tuscany or the lakes or Rome or Venice. So it's been fantastic here. So I highly recommend coming and we will see you next week when we head down towards Ontranto Bye. Bye.